Suspension of Disbelief

[The_Gneech]

We here at the Ancient Whale Coprolite Release Anti-Persecution Organization (AWCRAPO) are not amused by your anti-whale feces bias. You'll be contacted by our lawyers shortly...

<graham chapman>Right, stop that! It's got SILLY!</graham chapman>

-The Gneech

 

[wedgeski]

When on earth did I say that?Well, given that it's the DM's world, how challenging can it be for him to write something consistent with a thing he himself defines?

To be fair, you didn't, my hyperbole got the better of me. But you certainly implied that you expect the quality of the brain-benders to be up to the same quality as the rest of the campaign. I just think your DM has made a rod for his own back with the attention he has paid to the areas of the campaign that you obviously appreciate - the linguistics - because now anything not up to scratch is in danger of wrenching you from the game. I'd certainly be feeling the pressure if I was him.

 

[fusangite]

To be fair, you didn't, my hyperbole got the better of me. But you certainly implied that you expect the quality of the brain-benders to be up to the same quality as the rest of the campaign.

Actually, I don't enjoy "this is a puzzle" puzzles very much. I like figuring things out; political intrigue, military tactics, mystery solving: those are the kinds of things I like to apply my mind to in games. And they also happen to be the kinds of intellecutal challenges the rules support. I like being intellectually challenged but if I want to do a crossword, I'll buy a little newsprint book of them and do them on the subway in the morning.

I just think your DM has made a rod for his own back with the attention he has paid to the areas of the campaign that you obviously appreciate - the linguistics - because now anything not up to scratch is in danger of wrenching you from the game. I'd certainly be feeling the pressure if I was him.

Well, remember he only put a word puzzle in every 13 episodes or so. And they tended to be jarring and a little out of place in the storyline. The campaign wouldn't be any different if there were no word puzzles in it at all. All I asked was that we not do puzzles that involved re-arranging the letters in English words -- I think that leaves the game pretty wide open for almost any puzzle or challenge a DM could think up!

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Or even many traditional riddles work by a word having a double meaning; something like "I have hands, but no arms. What am I?" (A clock, perhaps), doesn't necessarily work in anything other than english..

A DM i know had his Rokugan campaign pretty much hinge on us figuring out a riddle that ultimayely involved us the players realizing a red hare and a red haired man were meant to be related to each other some how. Killed it for me. Fake japanese for "hare" wouldn't sound like "hair".

 

[Eosin the Red]

I wrote ----

Originally Posted by Eosin the Red
7. Worlds with a richly detailed history streching back longer than 3,000-4,000 years that still haven't developed past a hodge-podge of dark ages to renissance level technology or social conventions.

And now to reply to this ----

Some researchers have theories that technological advancement is a sum of different occurences that arent certain, and by no means inevitable.

I can see your point. I suppose I was less than clear. A "richly detailed history" to me implies that there is a means of communicating it. I don't think fantasy worlds need to be building nuclear power plants 3,000 years after secure means of tranmitting history are discovered but I don't think it is unreasonable for a culture that has been writing for 4,000 years to be hip deep in metal forgery and the mastery of the stirup.

 

[sniffles]

Re magic missile - there are times the player needs to speak OOC, like whenever they're describing their PCs' actions to the GM. So yup, I definitely think the player ought to be saying "I cast magic missile", not obfuscating the issue. If the player or GM wishes to then insert some descriptive flavour text, then great - I often do this as GM, describing th glowing darts striking the enemy or whatever.

Yes, I agree with you, S'mon. And with Wedgeski also. Too much flavor can slow down the game and make communication difficult. I just wish we had a little more flavor sometimes. It's too easy to just fall back on the game terminology. I suppose it's too much to ask when we're all tired after a long week at work. I'm certainly not a fabulous example of providing descriptive flavor text.

 

[fusangite]

I can see your point. I suppose I was less than clear. A "richly detailed history" to me implies that there is a means of communicating it. I don't think fantasy worlds need to be building nuclear power plants 3,000 years after secure means of tranmitting history are discovered but I don't think it is unreasonable for a culture that has been writing for 4,000 years to be hip deep in metal forgery and the mastery of the stirup.

Frankly, I think any level of tech is insufficient to justify an objective, agreed-upon 4000 year history. But I do see your point. I tend to find that agreed-upon, detailed histories, by themselves make worlds less credible. The "histories" many settings present, while appropriate for GMs, are totally inappropriate for players. Most setting histories tend to reek of an objectivity that we can't even pull together when chronicling 19th century America.

 

[WizarDru]

The problem with this, if there is one, is that you're replacing a common language with a subjective one. Wouldn't your DM just say: "Uh, so you're casting Magic Missile?"

That flowery language is great...the first time. Last week I cast Magic Missle eight times while we were in the Lost City of Barakus. A Rose is A Rose is A Rose. By the fortieth time my sorceror has cast Sleep or MM, it gets a little old and cumbersome, IMHO.

As for the names thing, I used to dislike plain European names...but over the years, the more I delve into history, the more I prefer more accurate names. Nonsensical names like Gulvendor Mylokinamivayir might seem cute and 'fantastic', but they ruin my suspension of disbelief much more. Not using a german name like Frederick or a welsh name like Ioan or a scottish name like Angus just because they were actually used in a game that draws from so many other elements of mediveal Europe seems kind of odd, to me. I mean, do we call them tulwars or shortswords...and does it make a difference if we do?

 

[barsoomcore]

Most setting histories tend to reek of an objectivity that we can't even pull together when chronicling 19th century America.

Man, do I hate that.

No, not 19th century America.

But those histories that DMs hand out that "explain" their whole world and tell you what actually happened. Grrrr.

I find that determining what "actually" happened is only rarely as useful as determining what NPC X THINKS happened. My players go completely bananas trying to speculate how some ancient poem's description of what happened when Suelekar Ben Azan built Tabbadur (it describes a long and bloody last stand battle with shivered spears and mocking serpents) compares to what the Blood Council is telling them Tabbadur is (a trans-dimensional prison for an insane goddess) and do the serpents represent the goddess' mortal henchmen, or are they the spells that were cast to create the prison, or is the poem just a bunch of hooey written five hundred years after the event?

The beautiful thing is, I don't even have to decide.

 

[sniffles]

Re: the history of the game world, I doubt that I'll ever GM a campaign myself, but I've thought that if I did I'd give each player a brief "what you know about the world" summary tailored to their character. Obviously the history is going to be different dependent on what race the character is as well as what culture and locale they come from.

Now that makes me think about the issue of having so many pantheons of deities in one setting. I like the detailing of the Forgotten Realms pantheons, for instance, but just how do all those deities work with respect to each other when their portfolios overlap? What part of nature is Silvanus responsible for that isn't also covered by an elven nature deity and a halfling nature deity? It never seems to be quite convincing to me. I prefer the cosmology of Glorantha, which acknowledges that different people may worship the same deity under different names and with different attributes. Glorantha does a nice job with the history, too, giving different histories depending on who you are and where you live.

Ah, well, too much thinking! Let's just have fun!